RE: Calculating the Cost per Article in the Current Subscription Model - A response on behalf of Oxford Journals

["MUKHERJEE, Mithu" <mithu.mukherjee@oupjournals.org>]

A response posted on behalf of Richard Gedye, Sales and Marketing
Director, Oxford Journals

As Oxford University Press is mentioned several times within Davis' and
Price's article on how the interface of an online journal can influence
usage statistics, I felt it would be useful to comment on two specific
issues from Oxford Journals' perspective:

1. Links from Tables of Contents:

On page 6 of the article, the authors state "A researcher starting at the
Table of Contents page on the HighWire interface is required to first
download the article in HTML". Oxford Journals has now changed this
linking strategy within the TOC interface so that all our journals offer
links to Abstracts (where they exist), Full Text HTML (if it exists), and
Full Text PDF (if it exists). For example:

http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/current.dtl

This new interface applies to all content in current and subsequent
journal issues, and has also been implemented for the back archive of
every journal in our online collection.

It is worth dwelling for a moment on why the previous interface design was
in place (that of linking to HTML articles, where they existed, in the
first instance). Until relatively recently PDF functionality was much less
satisfactory than it is now - PDFs were not well integrated into the
average browser experience, they were slow to download, and often
impossible to print on available institutional printers. The previous
interface was designed, therefore, to support a user friendly preference
for speed in scanning the literature (in HTML form) before potentially
choosing to download or print the article (either in HTML or as a PDF).
This interface design preceded the introduction of COUNTER compliant usage
statistics, so it would be anachronistic to surmise that it was designed
with intent to artificially boost usage statistics. The authors are
correct in their surmise that "it is entirely possible for a publisher to
optimise its interface to maximise the number of article downloads" (page
7), but both Oxford Journals and HighWire (who host the entire Oxford
Journals collection) would like to stress that this was never the
intention of our previous interface design.

2. Links from Crossref

On page 6 of the article, the authors also state "it was discovered that
HighWire and Oxford (which uses the HighWire platform) direct all external
Crossref links to the HTML version, while Blackwell, Nature and Wiley
direct external links to the abstract page". This statement is incorrect
as it relates to Oxford Journals. Crossref links are based on DOIs, and
our DOIs resolve to:

* The abstract (if there is one) (e.g.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/chinesejil/jmi001)

* The 'extract' if it's a full text html article with no abstract (e.g.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/frebul/kti014)

* The registration/pdf page if the article has no abstract and is not in
full text HTML (e.g. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/fs/kni063)  This matter has
been discussed with the authors, and I understand that they have
amendedtheir article, which has now been accepted for publication by
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
(JASIST)

If readers of this listserv have any further questions about Oxford
Journals and HighWire usage statistics and linking strategies, please
don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Richard Gedye,
Sales and Marketing Director
Oxford Journals 
Oxford University Press 
Great Clarendon Street 
Oxford 
OX2 6DP 
richard.gedye@oupjournals.org

_________

Authors:  Davis, Philip; Cornell University Library Task Force on Open
Access Publishing

Issue Date:  22-Dec-2004
Available: http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/236

Abstract:  This spreadsheet calculates the cost per article published in
the current subscription model for 113 institutions designated under the
Association of Research Libraries. It graphs these institutions by FTE
(full time equivalent enrollment) and compares the results to a range of
costs postulated in the producer-pays open access model. This spreadsheet
uses publicly-available information and the author regrets any errors
within. It was designed to promote dialog and additional analysis -- not
to advocate a particular position. Modifying the starting assumptions will
recalculate the values in the spreadsheet and update the graph. Readers
are encouraged to change the assumptions based on more accurate
information or alternative scenarios.

This spreadsheet is an addendum to the Report of the CUL Task Force on
Open Access Publishing presented to the Cornell University Library
Management Team August 9, 2004.

Questions and clarification can be sent to the author, Philip Davis at:
pmd8@cornell.edu

___